“The Simpsons” will no longer use white actors to dub ethnic minority characters, the producers of the long-running animated series announced Friday.The decision includes a recurring character from the series, launched in 1989 — Apu Nahasapeemapetilon, a grocer of Indian origin voiced in the American version of the show by white actor Hank Azaria.The character has long been seen as problematic and conveying racist stereotypes. Last January Azaria announced that, in agreement with producers, he was abandoning the role.”Moving forward, THE SIMPSONS will no longer have white actors voice non-white characters,” Fox Studios said in a statement to AFP.The change will also affect the character of Dr. Hibbert, a Black man dubbed by the white actor Harry Shearer who also lends his voice to many other characters on the series — from Homer Simpson’s boss Mr. Burns to the chirpy neighbor Ned Flanders.The announcement came as Mike Henry, the white actor who voices the Black character of Cleveland Brown in “Family Guy,” another animated series produced by Fox, announced on Twitter that he was giving up the role.”It’s been an honor to play Cleveland on Family Guy for 20 years. I love this character, but persons of color should play characters of color. Therefore, I will be stepping down from the role,” he wrote.Americans are in the midst of a reckoning on systemic racism and discrimination ignited by the death of George Floyd, an African American man, in police custody in Minneapolis on May 25.      
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A Moscow court on Friday convicted acclaimed Russian theater and film director Kirill Serebrennikov of fraud, in a long-running case that critics have slammed as fabricated.The judge ruled that Serebrennikov, 50, and two co-defendants were guilty of misappropriating 129 million rubles ($2 million) of state funds that financed a theatrical project.”Serebrennikov, [Yury] Itin and [Konstantin] Malobrodsky carried out actions directed at personal enrichment” and acted as a group to mislead employees of the culture ministry, Judge Olesya Mendeleyeva said, according to an AFP correspondent in the court.A fourth defendant in the case, Sofia Apfelbaum, was “unaware” of the fraud, the judge said.The prosecution earlier this week asked the court to give Serebrennikov a six-year prison sentence, but the judge can take a long time to reach sentencing.Serebrennikov, who heads one of Moscow’s top theater venues, the Gogol Center, was arrested in 2017 and the case against him nearly fell apart last year when a judge handed it back to the prosecution because of “inconsistencies.”It restarted with a new judge, and the amount of the alleged fraud was revised from 133 million rubles to 129 million rubles.The judge on Friday backed claims by the prosecution that Serebrennikov orchestrated theft of state money allocated to the Platforma project he ran between 2011 and 2014.Serebrennikov and his co-defendants insisted they were innocent. The director this week called the accusations that he stole the money “laughable.”
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The rap superstar will design adult and kids’ clothing that will be sold at Gap’s stores next year. Yeezy is best known for pricey sneakers that sell out online quickly. But Yeezy footwear, made with sneaker company Adidas, won’t be sold at Gap stores.San Francisco-based Gap Inc., whose sales are dwindling, hopes the deal will keep it relevant with shoppers. For Yeezy, being in more than 1,100 stores worldwide could get the brand in front of more people.On Friday, West tweeted a photo of what the collaboration might look like: bright colored hoodies, jackets and T-shirts. Shares of the retailer soared nearly 30%.West has a history with Gap. He worked at one of its stores in Chicago as a teenager. And he told Vanity Fair magazine back in 2015 that he wanted to be creative director of the brand.  As part of the deal announced Friday, Yeezy will receive royalties and possibly Gap stock if the line sells well.
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When country singer Rissi Palmer was working on her debut album, she wanted a song like Gretchen Wilson’s “Redneck Woman,” a song that would introduce her and tell her story to fans.  On her 2007 debut single, “Country Girl,” she celebrated her country roots while explaining that she didn’t have to look or talk a certain way to call herself a country girl.  “I said that I am not white in the first verse, and the label was like, ‘No, no, no,'” said Palmer, who then rewrote the lyrics to make it feel more universal. “It was very intentional when I wrote that song to talk about all the women, or all the people, that might not necessarily fit in the box, but are still of the same mindset.”The country music industry has long been hesitant to address its long and complicated history with race, but the death of George Floyd in police custody and the protests it sparked in the U.S. and around the world became a sound too loud for the genre to ignore.Over the past weeks, country artists, labels and country music organizations posted about Black Lives Matter on social media, participated in the industry wide Blackout Tuesday or denounced racism outright. On Thursday, Grammy-winning country group, The Dixie Chicks announced it would drop “dixie” from its name. The group said in a statement that it wanted to meet “this moment.”  But Black artists say the industry still needs to address the systematic racial barriers that have been entrenched in country music for decades. Stereotypes that country music is just for white audiences, written by white songwriters, and sung by mostly white males are reinforced daily on country radio, playlists, label rosters and tour lineups. In recent years, however, the conversations about country music have shifted to a broader acknowledgement that non-white artists have always been in the genre, even if they aren’t always recognized.  Artist/scholar Rhiannon Giddens received a MacArthur Foundation grant for her work to reclaim Black contributions to country and folk music. And artists like Darius Rucker, Kane Brown and Jimmie Allen have all had No. 1 country hits in recent years, while Mickey Guyton just released an unflinching song called “Black Like Me.” But that ingrained culture of exclusivity remains a struggle to change.  “You can look at the reviews of my first album. I was called colored, like, ‘I didn’t know colored people like country music,'” said Palmer, who had three singles reach the Hot Country Songs Chart. “I used to get messages all the time on MySpace, saying, ‘I am so sick of you. Why are you trying to be white?’ or ‘Why are you trying to take over country music?'”Change hasn’t been easy. After Grammy-winning country group  Lady Antebellum announced they were changing their name to Lady A, they later had to apologize to a Black singer who had been using that stage name for years.  Atlanta-based country rapper Breland also wanted to address, with a wink and a smile, country music’s racial blinders with his TikTok-fueled song  “My Truck.” The music video starts with a white guy in a black cowboy hat singing as smoke billows across a dusty landscape, then Breland abruptly shoves him out of the frame to announce, “Don’t touch my truck.””I just felt like it was time for people to change their perspective on what country music is and what country music can be, because there is an audience of country music listeners under 30 who believe Black Lives Matter,” said Breland, whose song reached No. 26 on Billboard’s Hot Country Songs chart and has been remixed with Sam Hunt.  Like Lil Nas X’s genre bending “Old Town Road,” Breland playfully fuses trap rhythms with country tropes about horses, do-si-dos and beer on his self-titled EP and sings with country artists Chase Rice and Lauren Alaina. Breland said country music labels can’t just continue to focus on one type of audience.  “There’s a group of country listeners who love country music because of the way it sounds, but don’t love some of the politics that they know are going on behind the scenes,” he said.  Historically country music was created by and played in both white and Black communities in the South, but the music became marketed along racial lines in the Jim Crow era, said Amanda Marie Martinez, a historian and writer who is studying country music and race. White country music was stigmatized early on as “hillbilly music” so the industry started pushing it toward the rising white middle class as a way to make the genre more respected and hugely profitable.”In the process, they’ve also prioritized the white, middle income, relatively conservative listener as their demographic, kind of the opposite of youth culture,” Martinez said.  But there were periods of diversity, such as the post-Civil Rights era, when Black artists like Charley Pride, Linda Martell, O.B. McClinton and Stoney Edwards were having success, alongside Johnny Rodriguez and Freddy Fender, who were singing in English and Spanish.Black artists today are also reclaiming spaces that have been overwhelmingly white domains.Claude Kelly and Chuck Harmony, who work as a duo called Louis York, were already hit-making songwriters and producers behind pop songs like “Party in the USA” by Miley Cyrus and “Grenade” by Bruno Mars when they moved to Franklin, Tennessee, a Nashville suburb that is home to historical sites of a major Civil War battle and plantations where slaves were once held. There they set up their Weirdo Workshop artist collective and have worked with Jimmie Allen and noted author/poet Caroline Randall Williams.  “We knew that if we were to make our mark in this town as musicians and as Black musicians that playing the Grand Ole Opry would be the pinnacle for that,” Harmony said.  They got a standing ovation at the Opry, but more importantly for Harmony, he wanted the audience to learn about country music’s roots.  “I just wanted their unbiased, undivided attention, so that they can make the correlation between the music that they came to see and the music that we make as Black people,” Harmony said.  Both the Academy of Country Music and the Country Music Association started diversity task forces more than a year ago when country music was being criticized for a lack of female voices and women were being left out of major categories like entertainer of the year.  Becky Gardenhire, a top executive at talent agency WME in Nashville who leads ACM’s diversity task force, said they are looking at ways to recruit and retain diverse voices, both in the boardroom and on the stage, with efforts like mentorships, networking and outreach to build up a pipeline of future leaders and artists.  “We’re hungry for diversity. We want the candidates to come and knock on the door, but we have to also show them that the door is open for them,” said Damon Whiteside, CEO of ACM.But just as country artists outwardly reflect a predominantly white image, there are few Black country music executives working behind the scenes. Candice Watkins got one of her first big breaks in country music working as the day-to-day manager for Keith Urban between 2009 and 2011.”That changed my life because obviously he’s a superstar,” said Watkins, who is now the vice president for marketing for Big Loud Records, whose roster includes Jake Owen and Morgan Wallen.  But in that manager’s role, she realized that she was often the only Black person at the boardroom table. Watkins said her label supports her and values her opinion, but she knows that might not be the same for other minorities and their companies.  “How is a young A&R person empowered to come back to the table and maybe pitch a Black artist or person of color? Culturally speaking, do they feel free to do that or do they automatically know this is dangerous ground for them to even bring up?” Watkins said. “There’s a dismantling of culture that needs to happen.”Palmer, who is recording a podcast that focuses on the experiences of women of color in country music, said she feels optimistic that the current discussions about race and country music can lead to progress, if real changes are implemented.  “I love country music, always have, always will. It’s healing music. It’s beautiful music at its core. It’s heartfelt. It’s spiritual,” Palmer said. “And it would be a shame if not everybody got to enjoy it because of the outward package.” 
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Country music trio The Dixie Chicks are now just The Chicks, joining other artists and companies who have recently altered their brands to discard names that connote racism or slavery.  The Chicks’ release of a new protest song Thursday came with new social media handles, a new website address and a new cover for an upcoming album. “We want to meet this moment,” members Martie Maguire, Natalie Maines and Emily Strayer said in a joint statement on their website, the only comment on the name change thus far. The Grammy-winning group has performed under its previous moniker since its start in 1989. Dixie and Dixieland are nicknames for the U.S. South, and may have come from the Mason-Dixon line, once considered the line between “free” Northern states and “slave” Southern states. The name change came just a week after writer Jeremy Helligar challenged The Chicks’ former name in a Variety magazine Op-Ed. “For many Black people, (Dixie) conjures a time and a place of bondage,” Helligar said. The Chicks are releasing their first album in 14 years next month, “Gaslighter.” The music video for new protest song “March March” uses footage from Black Lives Matter protests and features the names of prominent victims of racism and police brutality, including George Floyd and Breonna Taylor. In a statement to online magazine Pitchfork, the group thanked a New Zealand-based duo, also called The Chicks, for letting them “share the name.” Country group Lady A, previously known as Lady Antebellum, made a similar change earlier this month to drop associations with the pre-Civil War South. The band faced opposition from Anita White, a Black singer who has used the stage name Lady A for over 20 years. A meeting between the group and White ended in “positive solutions and common ground,” according to social media posts by both.    View this post on Instagram         @ladyantebellumofficial How can you say Black Lives Matter and put your knee on the neck of another Black artist? I’m not mad..I am however not giving up my name, my brand I worked hard for. #GodWillFightMyBattle #TheRealLadyA #LadyABluesSoulFunkGospelArtist #TheTruthIsLoudA post shared by LadyA (@ladya_bluesdiva) on Jun 12, 2020 at 9:34am PDT
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